This post more clearly explains the concept of innovation better than any written words I’ve seen before this, and partly by separating the notion of “invention” from innovation. An invention isn’t useful in and of itself. It requires innovation around it to find the utility for the invention.

Take a step back to look at your own company or business. I look at WPEngine – they’re innovative. Because they have found ways to make WordPress useful to businesses like BP3. They didn’t invent WordPress, but they sure are good at making it useful.

If you look at BP3, we’re an innovative firm in the sense that we make IBM BPM useful for our customers. We do this through technology, organizational, and business model innovations to align our business with our customers.

Horace wraps with this statement:

Understanding that innovation requires passing a market test and that passing that test is immensely rewarding both for the creator and for society at large means that we can focus on how to make it happen. Obsessing over the mere novelties or inventions means we allocate resources which markets won’t reward. Misusing the term and confusing it with activities that don’t create value takes our eye off the causes and moves us away from finding ways of repeatably succeeding.

Recognizing that innoveracy is a problem allows us to address it. Addressing it would mean we could speak a language of value creation that everyone understands.